“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“It’s a shame that you were, then,” she replied dryly.
“Can I make it up to you?”
“I doubt it.”
“Nora...”
Standing very close to her, he looked at her pleadingly.
“Come back to me,” he murmured.
She rolled her eyes in exasperation.
“Please, Gérard, don’t do this.”
“I won’t work so hard. I’ll spend more time with you and the children.”
“Stop it!”
“Let’s give it one more try.”
“It’s too late.”
“Too late for what?” he said. “To save our family?”
“Oh, enough with your fancy phrases, we’re not in the courtroom now.”
Hurt, Gérard stopped. His features grew hard, and his manner changed. Now he looked at her with a contemptuous expression.
“You’re making the biggest mistake of your life.”
Nora’s heart sank. She didn’t like the look on his face, as if he were struggling to control a surfeit of violent anger. She was familiar with his explosive temperament, the barrage of reason that collapsed under a wave of fury if he didn’t get what he wanted. She felt a ball of anxiety in her solar plexus, and with it the need to get away from him, to protect herself from the simmering cruelty that he exuded from his entire being. Instinctively, she stepped back. Gérard gave a brief, mirthless smile, a fusion of malice and mockery.
“Am I scaring you, Nora?” he said, going toward her.
Nora tensed.
“Get out of my house!”
Gérard didn’t move. He stared at her in silence for a long moment, spurred on by tenacious resentment. She had dared. She had dared to leave him, to take him away from his children, to make him unhappy. To cast him into the darkest solitude. And all this for what? To live in this ridiculous little house on her own every other week, with barely enough money to survive? The poison of bitterness was slowly making its way into his veins, swelling the fury that he was increasingly unable to keep in check.
Nora sensed danger. She tried to stay calm and control the fear that gripped her, paralyzing her ability to think. Gérard had nothing to lose now. And she knew him sufficiently well to anticipate his reactions.
“Go and say goodbye to the children,” she ordered in the firmest tone she could. “And then I would like you to leave.”
Gérard, glaring, blurted out with a sardonic laugh, “You say goodbye to them from me.”
He stormed out of the house, got into his car, slammed the door, and sped off.
Alone in the entryway, Nora, trembling, softly pushed the front door closed.
Chapter 9
Gérard forced himself not to speed up as he drove home. He was enraged by Nora. He’d tried to reconnect with her and, as usual, she’d misconstrued his intent. And even if he couldn’t deny it hadn’t been particularly sensitive of him to tell her the story of the suspect who’d hanged himself in her house or the one next door, as always, she had assumed a negative ulterior motive on his part.
She’d thought—
